Omega к-4

by Джек Макдевитт

  While the Goompahs were engaged in their conversation, Digger moved to the side of the table, keeping the cylinder inside his vest, where it remained invisible.

  “Up there, Grogan,” said the Goompah behind the desk.

  Grogan? Another peculiar name for a native. Kellie snickered. The sound was loud enough to escape the damping effect of the suit and attract the attention of the Goompahs. Puzzled, they looked around while she held one hand over her mouth, trying to suppress a further onset. Grogan. Digger, watching her, felt a convulsion of his own coming on. He fought it down and took advantage of the distraction to slip the tube onto the table, along with three of the coins he’d taken. With luck, it would look like a piece of outgoing mail.

  “It must have been the fire,” said Grogan.

  The one behind the table scratched his right ear. “Sounded like a chakul,” he said.

  That brought a second round of snorts and giggles from the corridor, where Kellie had retreated. Digger barely made it out of the office himself before exploding with laughter. They hurried through the nearest doorway into the street, and let go. A few passersby looked curiously in their direction.

  “This being invisible,” said Digger, when he could calm down, “isn’t as easy as it’s supposed to be.”

  WITH JACK’S DEATH, they’d shed the policy of not splitting up. Their increasing familiarity with the cities of the Intigo might have caused them to become careless, but Kellie had pointed out that they had commlinks, that if either of them got into trouble, help was always nearby.

  So they divided forces. Digger would stay near the office, watching to see what happened to the message they’d left, while Kellie would post another one at a second likely location. Eventually, they hoped, one or the other would get delivered.

  But the prospect of hanging around the nearly empty building all day did nothing for his state of mind.

  When she’d left, and he’d gone back inside, he saw that the coins had vanished and the message had been moved to the edge of the table. That was encouraging. But the cylinder remained untouched through the balance of the morning, and he began to wonder whether he should have marked it URGENT.

  There were several other visitors, including a female who exchanged sexual signals with the office occupant and then, to Digger’s horror, closed the door and proceeded to engage him in a sexual liaison. All this occurred despite the fact there were others immediately outside who could not possibly have misunderstood what was happening.

  Digger, unhappily, was forced to watch.

  There was much gasping, clutching, and slobbering. Clothes went every which way, and the combatants moaned and laughed and sighed. There were protestations of affection, and when, midway through the proceedings, somebody knocked, the manager politely told him to come back later.

  When it was over, and the female gone, the message remained. The occupant of the office, whose name Digger now knew to be Kali—unless Kali was a derivative of lover or darling—threw some wood on the fire and settled back to his paperwork.

  Digger opened a channel to Kellie and told her what had happened. “Valor above and beyond,” she said.

  She had planted her message, she told him, only to see it get tossed aside. She’d recovered it, and the coins, and had gone to a third location.

  Kali left several times to wander through the building. Digger stayed with the cylinder, and was leaning against the wall, bored, when Kellie called to say her message was on the move.

  “I’ll let you know what happens,” she reported. “Meantime I think you should stay put.”

  Kali came back and went out again. Kellie was by then following the messenger, who’d been given one of the three coins. “I guess we overtipped,” she said.

  “Crossing the park. Headed north.

  “Messenger’s a female. Really moves along. I’m having all I can do to stay up with her.

  “Threatening rain.

  “Uh-oh.”

  Digger was watching Kali trying to stay awake. “What do you mean ‘uh-oh’?”

  “She’s gone into a stable. Talking to somebody.”

  One of the workers came in and began straightening up the office, working around Kali. Digger waited in the corridor, but he kept an eye on the cylinder.

  “Digger, they’re bringing out a berba. One of those fat horses.

  “She’s getting on.”

  “The messenger?”

  “Yes. And there she goes, trotting off into the park. Bye-bye.”

  “How about grabbing one of the critters for yourself?”

  “You think anybody would notice?”

  Digger had a vision of a riderless berba galloping through the park. “I don’t know.”

  “Believe me, it wouldn’t be pretty.”

  “If you can keep the animal in sight, Kellie, I’ll try to have Bill follow her.”

  “The park is the one immediately west of where you are. She’s headed north.”

  “Okay. Hang on. I’ve got a channel open to Bill now.”

  Bill acknowledged his instructions. Meanwhile, the cleaning person finished up and left. It was a perfunctory effort. Kali never stirred.

  Bill was on the circuit to Kellie: “Can you describe the animal?”

  “It’s got big jaws. It waddles when it runs. And it looks like all the rest of them.”

  “Color. What color is it? There are a lot of Goompahs down there riding around.”

  “Green. It was green. With a big white splash across its rear end.”

  “Wait one.”

  Kali shook himself awake, wandered outside, looked at the sundial that dominated the area in front of the main entrance, and came back in.

  “I can’t find the animal,” said Bill.

  “Damn.”

  “I need more information. Several of them look like the one you describe. How about the messenger? Any distinguishing characteristics?”

  “She’s a Goompah.”

  “Good. Anything else? What color’s her jacket? Her leggings?”

  “White. White jacket. No, wait. Yellow. I think it was yellow.”

  “Leggings?”

  “White.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.” But she’d hesitated.

  BILL INSISTED THERE was no rider wearing yellow and white atop a beast of the description Kellie had given. But it didn’t matter. Near the end of the afternoon, Kali bundled up the cylinder with some other papers, glanced curiously at it, shrugged, picked up a bell to summon an assistant, and handed him everything. The assistant made a further distribution. The cylinder and a couple of other items ended in the hands of a young Goompah with a bright red hat.

  Digger, having learned from Kellie’s mistake, noted his clothing, noted also that Kali kept the three coins, and followed the creature out of the building.

  “Mine’s on the way,” he reported. The big items in the description were the red hat and a violently clashing purple scarf, a combination that should be easily visible to the naked eye from orbit.

  The messenger stopped for a cup of the heated brew that passed locally for tea. He engaged in a loud conversation with a couple of others. He wasn’t anxious to go home, he told them. His mate, wife, zilfa, was still angry. They laughed and took turns offering advice on how he should handle it. One of the comments translated roughly to “Show her who’s boss.” When he’d finished, they agreed to meet tomorrow, and he picked up his deliveries and headed across the street into a stable. Minutes later, he saddled up and headed north.

  “I’ve got him,” said Bill.

  MACAO LIVED IN a brick cottage on the northern side of the city. It was a long walk, mostly uphill, and they were exhausted when they arrived. By then, Bill reported, the cylinder had been delivered.

  The cottage was one of several set at the edge of a dense forest. There was a small barn in the rear, and a modest garden probably given over to raising vegetables. The sun was down, and the first stars were in the sky. An oil lamp flic
kered through closed, but imperfectly fitted, shutters. Black smoke rose out of a chimney.

  Something yowled as they approached, but nothing challenged them. A gentle wind moved against the trees. They heard voices farther along the crest, sporadic, sometimes laughing or shouting. Digger could make out only part of it. “Kids,” he said.

  Goompah kids.

  They paused under a tree facing the house. Something moved against the light.

  “I think it should be just one of us,” said Digger.

  Kellie agreed. “Has to be you,” she added.

  “My personality?”

  “Right. Also your language skills.” He felt her hand on his wrist, restraining him. “Maybe you should kill the lightbender.”

  Digger took a deep breath and thought of the demonic, foul creatures being dispatched by the god with the sword. They all looked like him and Kellie. So how best approach her? Demon or disembodied voice?

  He turned off the device. “I don’t look so terrible, do I?”

  “You look ravishing, love.”

  “All right. Let’s try it this way. She is, after all, enlightened.”

  “Yes. Absolutely.”

  “Can’t go wrong.” He walked up to the front door, which was a bit low for him. It was constructed of planks laid side by side, painted white, and polished with a gum of some sort. “First contact,” he told Kellie. And he knocked.

  “Who’s there?” He recognized Macao’s voice.

  Footsteps approached the door.

  “Digger Dunn,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “I was at your slosh in Brackel, and I listened to you speak at the launch. Could I ask a question, please?”

  A bolt was thrown, and the door swung out. Her eyes locked on him. He’d expected a screech in those first moments, screams followed by bedlam, neighbors on the way, animals howling, torches in the night, God knew what. He was prepared at the first indication of panic to hit the switch and wrap himself again in the lightbender.

  But she laughed. And when he stayed where he was, half-shrouded in darkness, she reached back and produced an oil lamp. She held it up to inspect his face. And the laughter died.

  “Is that real?” she asked, staring and beginning to breathe irregularly. She was gripping the door, hanging on to it for support.

  “Roblay culasta.” I’m a friend. He didn’t budge. Did nothing she could interpret as threatening. “Macao,” he said. “I know my appearance is strange. Frightening. I’m sorry. I come from very far.”

  She stared. Her mouth worked but nothing came out.

  “From beyond the sea,” he said. “It’s important that we speak.”

  She sighed and staggered back into the room. She wore a bright yellow blouse with rolled-up sleeves and a pair of red shorts that hung to her knees. Digger hesitated, edged forward, saw that she was on the verge of collapse, and reached for her arm.

  She did not react.

  He took hold of it and eased her into a chair.

  “Still got the old charm,” said Kellie.

  Macao needed a couple of minutes. She opened her eyes, looked at Digger, and instinctively turned her face aside as though he were too horrible to behold. He tried his most winning smile. “I won’t harm you, Macao,” he said softly. “And I’m not a zhoka, even though I look like one.”

  She quailed in his presence. “Don’t hurt me,” she said, in a tiny voice.

  “I would never do that.” He eased the door shut, found cups and a flagon of wine on a table, and poured some for her. She shook her head no. He was tempted to try it himself. “No,” she said. Her voice was barely audible. “Lykonda, protect me.”

  “I, too, have great affection for Lykonda,” he said.

  She simply sat there, limp as a wet towel, staring at him, as if she’d retreated into some far corner of her mind.

  “Macao, I’m sorry to frighten you. But it’s important that we talk. About T’Klot.”

  Her jaw muscles tightened, and he again thought she was going to pass out.

  “I’ve come to try to help you.”

  It was a pleasant home. Fireplace, several chairs, plank floor, a looking glass, a table, and a shelf with several scrolls. The shutters were flanked by thick blue curtains. A second room, opening off the back, was dark. “I will leave in a few minutes, Macao. Because I know that is what you wish. But first I need you to listen to me.”

  She tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I’m a friend.”

  She got her breathing under control. And finally looked directly at him. “I did not see you,” she said, “at the slosh.” And she laughed. The sound touched a few notes that sounded hysterical, but she held on. “Why have you come?”

  “The hole in the sky,” he said, forgetting himself and using English. “T’Klot.”

  “Yes.” She glanced past him at the door. It was supposed to be furtive, he thought, but maybe Goompahs weren’t good at that sort of thing. “Is it the creation of Shol?”

  “Who’s Shol?”

  “You are Shol.”

  “No. No, Macao. I am Digger, and Shol didn’t create the hole. But it is very dangerous.”

  “If you are not Shol, not a zhoka, what are you?”

  “I’m somebody who’s come a long way to help you, Macao. Let me tell you first that, in Brackel, you were right. The world is round.”

  “Is that true?” A light came into her eyes. And she seemed to recover herself. “Is that really true?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s really so. But it’s not why I’m here.”

  She started to ask the obvious question but, probably fearful of the answer, stopped.

  The chairs were made from interwoven strips of hide on a wooden frame. They were a bit low for Digger, but they were more than sufficiently wide. “May I?” he asked, glancing at a chair facing her.

  She made no move to say no, so he lowered himself into it. “The Hole presents a serious hazard. To everyone in the Intigo.”

  She glanced at the cup of wine and he passed it to her. She took it, gazed into it as if assuring herself that it would not snatch away her soul, and put it to her lips. “You may have some,” she said, “if you wish.”

  The universal. Share a drink with someone and bond. Would it prove to be true in all cultures? He poured a few drops into a second cup and raised it to her. “To your courage, Macao,” he said.

  She managed a smile.

  He held the cup to his lips and tasted the brew. It was bitter. “It’s actually a cloud,” he said, “a vast storm. It will arrive in ninety-three days, and it’s going to wreck the eleven cities.”

  Ninety-three of the shortened days at the Intigo. Eighty-six standard days on board the Jenkins. The target date was December 13.

  It was the most painful conversation of Digger’s life. Macao was terrified, and the news wasn’t helping. “It’ll bring tornadoes and lightning and high water and rocks falling from the sky and we don’t know what else.”

  In spite of everything, she managed a half smile. If you don’t know, who would?

  She was struggling to control her emotions. And he found his respect for her growing. How many of the women back home could have sat more or less calmly conducting a conversation with a demon?

  “Rocks cannot fall from the sky,” she said.

  “Believe me, they can.”

  “Then why can I not see them?”

  “I don’t understand the question.”

  “There are no rocks in the sky. If there were, surely we would see them.”

  “The rocks are very far away. And hidden in the cloud.”

  “How far?”

  How to translate 30 million or so kilometers into a number she could understand? “Very far,” he said.

  “The sky is only a shell. What you are telling me is incomprehensible.”

  “Macao,” he said, “what are the stars?”

  “Some say they are the ligh
t from the celestial realm, which we can see through holes in the shell.”

  “But you don’t believe it?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It does not seem to me to make sense.”

  “Good for you. What do you think the stars are?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I want you to take my word that the hole in the sky is dangerous. That, when it comes, it will bring great suffering. Your people, the people across the Intigo, must get away from the cities, must get to higher ground. If they cannot do this, they will die.”

  Her eyes cut into him. “Despite your words, you are, after all, a manifestation of evil.”

  “I am not.”

  “If you are not, then stop this thing that you say is coming. Surely you are able to control a hole. Or a cloud. Or whatever it is.”

  “It’s a cloud.”

  “Only a cloud? And you, with all your power, cannot brush it aside?”

  “If I could do that, do you think I would be here asking for help?”

  She looked at him and shuddered. “I don’t understand any of this. Who are you, really?”

  “Macao,” he said, “in Brackel you talked about lands beyond the seas. And about giant falloons and attack groppes and flying bobbos—”

  “Bobbos that attack and groppes that fly—”

  “Pardon?”

  “You had it backward.”

  “Sorry. Memory fails.”

  “Bobbos do fly.”

  “Oh.”

  “Ordinary bobbos fly all the time. They are in the trees outside at this very moment.” She injected an adjective after ordinary that he did not understand. Probably something like run-of-the-mill. “How could you not know?”

  “That bobbos fly? Because I’m not from around here.” He gazed intently at her. “I wouldn’t know a bobbo from a seashell.” He put the cup down. “You talked, in Brackel, about the city from which people can see the past and the future.”

  “Brissie,” she said.

  “Yes. Brissie.” He leaned forward, watched her push back in her chair, and immediately retreated. “Macao, we are looking at two possible futures now. If you are willing to trust me, you can save your people. Or, if you cling to the superstition that brands me as something out of the dark, then you and all that the Korbikkans have built, will be destroyed.”